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Old 10-11-2018, 11:40 AM   #21
Bruno
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

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Originally Posted by Celjabba View Post
In my opinion, the biggest cause of navigation error, at least among trained people with actual skill, is fatigue.
I think you can shorten that to "biggest cause of error is fatigue" and be at least in the right ballpark.
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Old 10-11-2018, 01:55 PM   #22
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

Where are the rules for this?



... badum-tsh
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Old 10-23-2018, 09:47 AM   #23
Vaevictis Asmadi
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

There seems to be a lot of familiarity with this skill on this thread, so I'll ask:

Why is is there no default from land Navigation to Astronomy? In low-tech, Astronomy is useful for Sea and Air Navigation, so why not for land?

Also, on a flat world with no curvature nor horizon, would any of the defaults between specialties and other skills change? In particular, how would that affect defaults from Navigation to Astronomy?
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Old 10-23-2018, 09:58 AM   #24
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

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Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi View Post
Also, on a flat world with no curvature nor horizon, would any of the defaults between specialties and other skills change? In particular, how would that affect defaults from Navigation to Astronomy?
On a flat (endless?) world, there would be no latitude nor longitude, so astronomy would be useless for determining those.

Presuming the stars are fixed in the sky, the cardinal directions would be easy enough though- just walk toward a particular constellation.

A possible variation is that the sky is just a low ceiling, so travelling far enough in one direction will have the constellations over your head change, though I wouldn't imagine Astronomy as a skill would be necessary to follow that.
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Old 10-23-2018, 10:05 AM   #25
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

What about on a flat but finite world (with edges and a center-point) and constellations that orbit the world and remain fixed only relative to each other? The same stars would be visible from all locations at any given night and time, right?
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Old 10-23-2018, 11:02 AM   #26
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

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Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi View Post
What about on a flat but finite world (with edges and a center-point) and constellations that orbit the world and remain fixed only relative to each other? The same stars would be visible from all locations at any given night and time, right?
Yeah, you could tell the time and seasons with astronomy, but it's the Earth's sphericity which lets you know latitude and longitude. Are the sun and moon far away, like for Earth, or do they orbit fairly closely, like on Discworld? If they're close, you can use their elevation to tell your position - if they go overhead then you're near the centre line of the world, then a lower angle means you're further away. Without a protractor, you could still tell by which constellations the moon was moving through, as it'd be in a different part of the sky for different observers.

Also, if your disk is spinning around its centre, then I think observing where the sun or moon rises (both in the close and distant cases) and which way it moves through the sky could tell you where on the disk's clock dial you are.
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Old 10-23-2018, 11:07 AM   #27
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

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Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi View Post
Why is is there no default from land Navigation to Astronomy? In low-tech, Astronomy is useful for Sea and Air Navigation, so why not for land?
In Low-Tech, I'm pretty sure there's no mention of air navigation.

Looking only at sea versus land, at sea there are often no landmarks to rely on. There usually are on land. I think it may be kind of rare that figuring your location purely from the sun and stars is your primary recourse on land.
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Old 10-23-2018, 11:22 AM   #28
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

Er, right. No low-tech air Navigation (except for flyers and magical flying ships).

But what if you've got no map, and no recognizeable landmarks, and your TL is too low for a magnetic compass? You might even be in a large flat expanse of grassland, tundra, or desert, with no bodies of water nearby. Especially if there's a horizon, there may be no landmarks visible at all. The same might even be true if people are travelling atop the canopy of a huge, closed forest, or at least peeking above the canopy once in a while to try to tell where they are.

Or if nobody in the party knows Navigation at all, but somebody knows Astronomy.


Conversely, on a flat world, how would people navigate at sea without the aid of the stars? What kind of instruments or methods would people invent at low tech levels? Would open-ocean navigation be impossible? Or would using the sun and moon as Daigoro describes give enough info?
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Old 10-23-2018, 01:27 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi View Post
There seems to be a lot of familiarity with this skill on this thread, so I'll ask:

Why is is there no default from land Navigation to Astronomy?
Because in Navigation I only need to know a very small grouping of stars, and only if orienteering without tools.

On the other hand there is a lot you need to know for Navigating that Astronomy won't cover at all, the biggest being how to stay on course while detouring. Knowing where the North Star is or how the Sun traverses the sky won't help a whole lot there (I mean it helps, but not as much as knowing pacing or bearings).
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Old 10-23-2018, 07:11 PM   #30
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Navigation

The Pundits (spies for the Indian Political Service) were trained to count standardized paces for cartographic purposes. Basically an adaptation of a military cadence. How much can be done with this?

A foot column can by this means means measure it's progress down a route in precise terms. A vehicle can have a device to count wheel rotations. I haven't the foggiest idea how one will do this with animals especially if they are in harness. If they are pulling a vehicle though, rotations of the wheel can be counted in the summer. There is probably some ingenious device that can be rigged for a sleigh.

These are rather primitive methods but useful. Is there a dead reckoning app that will render this obsolete?
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